What's New: Beware Fake Antivirus Software

In the past few days ITS has cleaned a few fake antivirus programs such as Personal AntiVirus and Windows Police Pro from clients' PCs. Growing in popularity, these types of fake "anti-malware" programs are in fact scams. Using browser ads, popup ads, or e-mails, users are tricked into installing the software to "fix their PC NOW!" The software then waits a bit and starts to warn the user of supposed virus or pest infections, potentially creating the "symptoms" itself. It then offers to clean them up if the user purchases or upgrades the program. Of course the "fix" is easy since there is no real infection.

The bottom line: if your firm has antivirus software on it already, educate users so they can determine if a popup is a real warning from the software or a fake ad, and instruct them to not install software without permission.